Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), also called chronic obstructive airway disease, is a syndrome that may be caused by a number of different diseases, all of which damage the alveoli and bronchioles, leading to impaired lung function. These diseases include asthmatic bronchitis, chronic bronchitis (with normal airflow), chronic obstructive bronchitis, bullous disease, and emphysema. As the alveoli and bronchial tubes are destroyed, the remaining healthy lung tissue must work harder to provide the required amount of blood oxygenation. The need for more air leads to lung over-inflation. As the lung over-expands, it gradually enlarges, completely filling the chest cavity and causing a sense of shortness of breath. The lung eventually loses its elasticity and the combination of a larger, less elastic lung and damaged, nonfunctioning tissue leads to slower airflow into and out of the lung, resulting in the feeling in the patient of an obstructed airway.
One manner of treating COPD is oxygen therapy, which requires a patient to remain near a stationary oxygen source or carry a bulky portable oxygen source when away from home or a treatment facility. Understandably such oxygen therapy has many disadvantages. One surgical treatment that has been proposed for treating patients with COPD is lung reduction surgery. Such surgery, however, can be used on only a small percentage of the total patient population, requires long recovery times, and does not always provide a clear patient benefit.
Arteriovenous (AV) shunt devices have been proposed for treating COPD by providing a fistula between an artery and a vein that are anatomically parallel to each other. The shunt allows oxygen-rich blood from the artery to flow to the vein and thereby increases the oxygen content of the blood returning to the heart and lungs, which in turn is considered to benefit a patient suffering from COPD. Such shunt devices have been suggested to be implanted via an open surgical procedure, a minimally invasive surgical procedure and an intravascular procedure depending on the specific arterial and venous locations that are to be connected by the AV shunt. However, a need continues to exist in the art for an AV shunt that may be quickly and simply delivered and deployed via a minimally invasive procedure. Accordingly apparatus and methods for treating patients suffering from COPD and other related conditions by deploying a shunt in a minimally invasive procedure to create a fistula between adjacent vascular structures are provided herein.